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[Opening jingle]
Hi and welcome to The Bread Kitchen.
Today I'm gonna make a Welsh bread called Bara Brith which means "speckled bread"
and I'm gonna make it the traditional way using yeast.
For this traditional recipe, I've got 450 g of strong white bread flour,
225 ml of lukewarm milk,
75 g of butter that I've cut into small pieces,
a 150 g of dried fruit. This is mixed dried fruit but you can use sultanas or raisins or mixed peel or whatever you want.
75 g of demerara sugar, a beaten egg.
Here there's 2 teaspoons of dried yeast and a teaspoon of brown sugar.
Finally, I've got a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of mixed spice.
Mixed spice is a mixture of things like cinnamon and nutmeg and cardamom. You might know it as pumpkin spice.
I'll start by adding the yeast and a teaspoon of sugar into the warm milk.
Give it a whisk and then I'll leave it for 10 minutes just for the yeast to activate.
While the yeast is waking up, I can sift the flour into a bowl.
I'll add in the butter and I'll mix these together, rub them together with my hands
until I get a texture which is a bit like sand.
If you've ever made scones, you'll know the texture I'm talking about.
When the butter has been nicely rubbed in, it should be like playing in a nice, dry sandpit.
Now add in the brown sugar, the 75 g,
the mixed spice and the salt and I'll just mix it altogether.
I'll just make a well in the centre.
My yeast has gone all frothy and is now smelling...well...
yeasty, I suppose. Add that in. Together with the beaten egg.
Now mix this to a nice, smooth dough.
Depending on your size of the egg,
you might find that your dough is a bit sticky
but that's no problem because I'll show you how I deal with sticky doughs.
Liberally, flour a surface which you're gonna knead the dough on. Your sticky dough.
Turn the dough out
and knead it well.
Some of the flour that you've got on the surface, will start to get incorporate into the dough
and start removing the stickiness. Now you may need to
dust the surface
a few times depending on how sticky your dough is
but you will eventually end up with a nice, soft dough. You see, this is getting much better already
I've managed to knead in enough flour that the dough is just slightly tacky.
It's not sticky anymore.
So I'm gonna knead it now for about 7 or 8 minutes.
Work that gluten. Hm.. hm.. hm..
After you've given your dough a really good pummelling,
make it into a nice, smooth ball.
Pop it into a lightly-greased bowl
and cover and put in a nice warm place
until the dough doubles in size.
Well, this has certainly risen very nicely, thank you.
So I'll dip it out onto a floured surface.
Splot!
I'll just knock it back a bit.
Add all the dried fruit,
fold over
and knead the fruit into the dough.
I'm gonna knead for about
5 minutes probably.
Alright. I think I've got the...
fruit fairly well incorporated.
So I'm gonna make this into a around.
What I intend to do
is if I see any bits of fruit on the surface, I pull them off
because in the oven, they tend to blacken very easily
and it doesn't make the loaf particularly appetising.
So I've picked off about a dozen. Just over a dozen
bits of dried fruit.
I got a piece of dough here which has no fruit poking out of it.
I'll now transfer this
to a lightly-greased baking tray.
Now I'll just cover it. You can use some cling film. I'm actually gonna use an upturned bowl
and I'm gonna leave this again in a warm place to rise for about half an hour.
Once your loaf has risen,
I'm gonna bake this in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius fan oven, 200 degrees Celsius normal oven
for about half an hour.
After about 30 minutes, it should be this lovely, golden brown colour.
While it's still hot, just brush it all over with a little warm honey.
Look at that lovely, shiny glaze.
Now leave this to cool.
Serve in slices, slightly warm maybe.
Spread with butter or margarine if you prefer.
There are many variations of the Bara Brith recipe and a lot of them use self-raising flour or baking powder
and I used to use that recipe too but once I've made Bara Brith with yeast, I'm never going back again.
I hope you enjoy making your Bara Brith and do join me next time in The Bread Kitchen.
[Closing jingle]